Jon Kennedy,
Nanty Glo Home Page webmaster and owner, is a former teen and campus minister.
He began his journalism career as teen columnist for the Nanty Glo Journal
and its sister weekly newspapers from 1957 to '62 and became the Journal's
third editor in 1962 at age 20. He has edited other newspapers and magazines,
and more recently, webzines, ever since. His articles have appeared in the Los
Angeles Times, Detroit Free Press, Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Christianity
Today, and many other publications. His Jonals appear here on Mondays, Wednesdays,
and Fridays.Complete
index of Jon Kennedy's Jonal articles

Sacralization

Jonal entry 990 | Wednesday,
June 7 2006

I racked my brain several nights ago to pinpoint the over-arching
principle guiding the traditional values or family values side of the
contemporary culture war. What's the equal opposite of "sexualize"?
What I found was a word that was new to me but which seemed legitimate,
which I later found is supported by the dictionaries. It's "sacralize,"
"sacralization." If the hedonistic left is dedicated to sexualizing
our culture, what is the linguistic opposite of "sexualize"? Though
our critics might propose "theocratize" or "puritanize," I think the
best term is sacralize. Sacral, the dictionary says, is an adjective
form of sacred and holy, but since neither sacred or holy lend themselves
to a verb form, "sacralize," as in "make sacred," gets at it.

"Theocratize," meaning to push toward a theocratic society, as discussed
here earlier, doesn't work because no intelligent person who identifies
with Western Judeo-Christian civilization believes in theocracy (though
many Islamists apparently do). Theocracy doesn't fit Judeo-Christian
categories because neither of these cultural options believe in coercing
belief or, to put it positively, both Christians and Jews believe in
freedom of conscience. "Puritan," one of the most abused words
in recent nomenclature; is almost never used properly. But even its
proper use pertaining to a movement in the Church of England and imported
to America in the early colonial period, hardly fits the current traditional
values cultural ideal.

Sacralization is a good word. Just about everyone, even if not a believer
in God or any god, holds some things as sacred. For romantics, it may
be the highest love in life. For some secularists, it might be their
family or children or the intergenerational bonds. Even atheists like
the late novelist Ayn Rand have described their sacred things. So I
think we'd be well served to get to know this word and start using and
promoting it.

As a cultural idealthat is, a concept that drives a vision of
culture and what direction it should takesacralization is the
antidote to sexualization by replacing hedonistic sex for personal pleasure
with mutual love for the establishing, building, and stregthening families.
"Marriage as a sacred institution" is the opposite of "same-sex
marriage," which so breaks down the very meaning of marriage that
it can only be seen as the most extreme attempt yet to force and, as
Richard
Ostling described last weekend, enforce,
a totally sexualized society.

Sacralizing is pursuing the holy: personal holiness, the holy in any
facet of life and activity. Holy means separated to God, moved aside
from the mundane to glorify and testify; to bespeak higher standards
and aspirations. To take the high road, so seldom taken in this generation
of public and general crudity. It can't be forced on anyone, but it
can be held up as a better way to live, better way to life, and such
holding up can commend the sacred to the culture. It's an idea that
seems to have long since gone off our 21st century "radar screen."
But it's an ideaidealthat's bound to come back again.

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